REVIEW: BLASTEROIDS

First off, if you find you have even a passing interest in BLASTEROIDS($1.00) before reading this review, by all means, go and download DeadKings. BLASTEROIDS is a featured minigame there (along with Checkers & Breakout), and DeadKings is an excellent game that throws in everything but the castle sink. You’ll pay the same price, and you get about 575%1 more game. No need to thank me.

For everyone else still here reading this, BLASTEROIDS is a stand-alone title that is… you guessed it, an Asteroids clone. It plays exactly how you remember it, and the vector graphics are as tidy (albeit simplistic) today as they were in the halcyon days of 1980s arcades. You control a triangle-shaped ship, and you are able to spin 360 degrees and thrust forward. Large asteroids lumber into view, which you then shoot, breaking them into smaller asteroids, avoiding the resulting pieces while continuing to destroy them all. Then you advance to the next round, and pad your score some more.

There are some added perks to the game, including skin-saving bombs that will destroy all tiny asteroids on-screen, or a shield that can absorb collision damage (so long as you don’t thrust straight into a big asteroid, it will take a few hits). You can also earn extra ships / bombs at different point plateaus.

While the gameplay undoubtedly was cutting edge for its time, and ate up thousands of quarters in said arcades, its brand of action isn’t nearly as addictive in modern times. That’s not Asteroids‘ fault, mind you, we’ve simply moved on to bigger experiences. Exacerbating that problem here is the fact that BLASTEROIDS doesn’t have a online leaderboard, or even record high scores for that matter. You could argue that the game itself is the ‘reward’, but again, modern palettes may demand something more substantial.

There’s not much else to say about the game that a flash version can’t do just the same, and nothing left to sort, save for which of the three camps you fall into. Either you have a nostalgic itch that needs scratching ( …I did. I hadn’t played Asteroids in years before this), you’ve never played Asteroids before2, or you have no interest in revisiting the umpteenth homage to a verified classic.

Whatever group you identify with, BLASTEROIDS doesn’t judge, just merely exists as a reminder that Asteroids existed before it. That reminder will cost you a dollar3.

Yes, it’s a made up percentage. But so is just about every other statistic you read on the internet. And anyway, I’m not lying about the amount of content you’ll find in DeadKings. It’s seriously like a ton of stuff. Fun stuff. ↩

I used to suck at the game as well but this version starts you out slow (only two large asteroids) and the controls are actually so awesome that it seems like a better version then the old one. So far as comparing it to the one in game I actually only still play checkers in DeadKings accept maybe once so hard for me to compare it but I think it’s pretty much the same.

Agreed. I think it’s the same game as what you find in DeadKings, though compared to the ‘original’ Asteroids, I’d agree this version is better. You can apply the shield pretty liberally, so you really have no ceiling as to how well you can do. I’m with David on the Checkers thing, too— I still went back to playing Checkers once I tried out the two new minigames. 🙂

This was just a cash grab, to see how the market would respond and to see what type of sales it would generate. I really wouldn’t waste a dollar on this…but it sells 10 copies a day which will pay for all my licensing fees that I had to dish out to release DeadKings. Yep all those updates and releases costs about $400 in licenses just for DeadKings. But, now I can roll those costs out into my next indie game which will be 8 player deathmatch’ish (top secret). Thanks for the review, totally appreciate it.

Blasteroids was just a game I wrote in an afternoon to see if I could replicate the look, feel, and sound of the original asteroids in 1979 arcade. I really wrote a vector engine for the gpu to make the rocks, and ships feel like they had an RGB offset and everything was built with lines. The audio was enhanced a bit and just really wanted to give those people who actually played the game in an Arcade a flashback moment.

No problem on the review, of course. 🙂 I figured it was meant to be something along those lines (indie development don’t come cheap), and if this article helps sway some more people over to DeadKings, then it’s win-win for everybody.

Well, now you’ve got me intrigued. A Deathmatch-ish game, eh? Would this be headed to XBLIG, I hope? Obviously you don’t have to spill any info now, but if you’d like to get some advance word out once you’re nearing release (assuming it’ll be XBLIG-bound), I’d be glad to throw up a preview article / trailer.

I skip over and don’t even see your footnote numbers in your text and then when I get to the bottom I have to scroll back and and see what it had to do with. You turned your reviews into a game of “Hmmm what did he mean by that footnote”. LOL

I picked it up just for your footnote reason so i fall into a camp that only exists as a footnote and not an actual camp. What’s that say about me?

I would love to see leaderboards on this game and that would make the experience and desire to play the game that much more. (HINT HINT) But I can see a reason for owning the game outside of Dead Kings (nice additional plugs for that game here BTW) because it’s just a passing fancy in that game and more like a side dish as apposed to the stand alone version becoming the main dish. Like spaghetti with Chicken Parmesan where the spaghetti is simply a side dish but when you eat it alone it becomes the star attraction.

Oh and you didn’t mention the enhanced audios compared to the original. I love the way this version sounds and it actually controls very well. OK there is my 2 cents and 2 cents more. Oh hell I’ll just give you the buck version.

‘I’d buy that for a dollar, a dollar!’ Great, now I’ve got that stuck in my head on repeat. And a Digital Underground reference? Maaaaaaannnn, bringing me back to Nothing But Trouble with Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, and a ‘very alive’ 2Pac:

Oh, and the footnotes are trademarked, sir. I love them way to much to switch back to the old format. Consider it two articles in one; you read the top one, then the footnotes, then go back and figure out what the hell I was trying to get at. It’s like being a codebreaker. 🙂

I’ve got no regrets buying the game, same with Impossiball before this. I have to tell it like it is for the sake of being objective, but still, I didn’t feel any buyer’s remorse afterward. You make a valid point, though. It should be four camps, then, although your group (which I’m a part of) is left hanging around in the footnotes like an afterthought. Could be worse. 😀

I’d put Nothing But Trouble up there with The Burbs, so far as my favorite Dark Comedies go. Both highly underrated films, but that’s what makes something a ‘cult film’, I guess. Either way, we enjoy them. If others can’t, hey, their loss.

Oh, and I like the audio in BLASTEROIDS, I just don’t think it’s anything too special. It’s got the retro sound, though, true enough. I have no objections. Now… you and your crew get back to the footnotes where you belong!!! 👿

That could be. I had to demote my 360 to make room for the One and the PS4 and the Wii U on the ole Sound System. It’s really only used for XBLIGs now, and while nice sound is nice sound, one has to make sacrifices for the new blood. 🙂

Any article (or, more correctly, comment on an article) that mentions the greatest film of all time: The ‘Burbs! is truly epic in my book. Forget all the Oscars and whatnot Tom Hanks has garnered in the years since; any movie that puts together him, Corey Feldman, Bruce Dern (!), and CARRIE FISHER (yes, I still have a crush on her) deserves more accolades than language can frame. {Useless trivia: Courtney Gains aka Hans Klopek was also in a video game: L.A. Noire, thus tying this thread all together, rather ludicrously}

I don’t actually have anything meaningful to add to this discussion. I just really, really, really like The ‘Burbs.

Haha, I was wondering if you’d see that or not. 🙂 So, Hans had a role in L.A. Noire, eh? It’s the Circle of Life, I guess. Er, Circle of Entertainment, maybe. And in that regard, your comment did have something to add to the discussion.